Over the past seven years, the site has yielded the earliest semi-permanent settlement in the Stonehenge area from 7,500 to 4,700BC.

And carbon dating of material found at the site show people were there during every millennium in between.

"Here we are in this little nook at the bottom of a hill with a river running round it and it probably had more people coming to it in the Mesolithic period than it's had people coming ever since," he said.

'Tip of iceberg'

For a project that has had limited funding it is already generating excitement amongst other leading archaeologists.

Professor Peter Rowley-Conwy, from Durham University, said: "The site has the potential to become one of the most important Mesolithic sites in north-western Europe."

And Dr Pollard, from the Stonehenge Riverside Project, said "being able to demonstrate that there were repeated visits to this area from the 9th to the 5th millennia BC" was significant.

"I suspect he's just hit the tip of the iceberg in terms of Mesolithic activity focussed on the Avon around present day Amesbury," he said.